BRPI0710005A2 - business process metamodel - Google Patents

Abstract

BUSINESS PROCESS METAMODEL A metamodel representing a business process. Operative expressions are defined to identify the business process. The business process includes a plurality of sequences of activities. Metadata is collected associated with the defined operative expressions. The collected metadata is formatted according to a schema. The metamodel representing the business process is provided to a user as a function of the formatted metadata and defined operating expressions in such a way that the user can interact with the business process using the defined operating expressions.

Description

"BUSINESS PROCESS METAMODEL"

BACKGROUND

Typically, software or computer applications configured to process business transactions are designed from a software developer perspective, leaving business users unable to fully use the software or applications. For example, in a process-oriented workflow or application, a business user might want to define a workflow that involves a series of process steps, a sequence for the steps, and the functions (for example, individuals) of -assigned to perform these process steps. The business user often needs to express the idea of the workflow to developers who can pass these concepts into programming code before the business user can satisfactorily define the workflow.

It is common for developers, while designing such applications, to set certain restrictions or conditions that are outside the business user's point of view. For example, when defining process steps, developers need to identify data associated with process steps and how to connect the data to the source so that the data can be used during the process step. This may involve data transformations, detailed data connection control and data flow, data output, etc. Developers may also need to consider exceptions, such as when a piece of data is unavailable or a function is unable to complete the designated task. An additional exemplary condition may be that a sequence step may trigger security or authentication mechanisms, configuration or hardware adjustments, etc.

A common problem with current software tools and practice is that the conversion between a business-level presentation and the developer's presentation level is achieved by translating - a process that simply converts and maintains the aspects. overlapping between the two different representations. The translation process, however, loses details of the process design from the developer's perspective. Detailed aspects that have been provided at an abstraction level (usually the developer level) are overlooked during the conversion to a different level of abstraction (usually the business user level). Moreover, changes made at one level of abstraction often break refinements that have been made at a different level of abstraction. As such, developers and business users alike need to redefine existing configurations exactly to retrieve what already exists.

As such, the business user, while being able to define the workflow by using the tools or functions available to them in their current process oriented applications, lacks the ability to truly identify and interact with the data and operations available to define a business process. through levels of abstractions.

SUMMARY

Modalities of the invention overcome the shortcomings of existing approaches to accurately capturing the business objective during a business process design stage. Aspects of the invention provide consistent and efficient ways to transform process design views between different levels of abstraction. By defining a set of vocabularies or a set of universal operative expressions, embodiments of the invention bridge the gap between the expressed business objective and the IT implementation and configuration of business applications.

Alternative embodiments of inventions construct or establish a business process interface or metamode that not only empowers a business user to describe a process in its abstraction, but also enables an individual or information technology (IT) developer to expose implementation in terms of the same interface. Also in another embodiment of the invention, the IT developer can use the business process metamodel created by the business person to create an implementation for the business processes. Alternatively, given an existing implementation, embodiments of the invention may disclose or expose the existing implementation for the business user desire process expression using the business process meta-model.

This table of contents is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in an simplified form, which are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify key resources or essential resources of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

Other features will be partly apparent and partly highlighted below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Figure 1A is a diagram illustrating an exemplary embodiment of a system for representing a business process in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

Figure 1B is a diagram illustrating a metamodel according to one embodiment of the invention.

Figures 2A and 2B are block diagrams illustrating the representation of a business process with associated metadata using vocabulary or operative expressions defined in accordance with one embodiment of the invention.

Figures 3A to 3D are block diagrams illustrating different perspectives of a business process according to one embodiment of the invention. Figure 4 is an exemplary flowchart illustrating the operation of representing a business process according to an embodiment of the invention.

Figure 5 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computer readable media in which aspects of the invention may be stored.

Figure 6 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a suitable computing system environment in which the invention may be implemented.

Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating an implementation of an entity-action model with schemas associated with entities and actions according to an embodiment of the invention.

Corresponding reference numbers indicate corresponding parts throughout all drawings.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring first to Figure 1A, a block diagram illustrates a system 100 for representing a business process in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. System 100 includes a general purpose computing device 102 which includes a processor 104 and a memory area 106. In one embodiment, computing device 102 is a computer 130 as illustrated and described in Figure 6. System 100 also includes an interface 118 for collecting data or metadata from a source, which may be in the form of input from a user (for example, business user 108) or in the form of automated process such as metadata fixed or associated with data when stored in memory area 106 or another source of data. Data storage. In one embodiment, the collected metadata is formatted to a uniform schema, which describes and defines metadata requirements. For example, the schema may define that the metadata will be within a certain character length, or the like. In one embodiment, system 100 is used to implement a model 118 described in Figure 1B to represent data or metadata derived from business objective capture during the business process design stage.

As shown in Figure 1A, one or more users have access to the computing device 102 on system 100. In one embodiment, the system 100 may be a system distributed with one or more server and client configurations with the computing device 102 being one of the servers. or customers. For example, one or more A1-N 108 business users have access to computing device 102, as well as one or more B1-N 110 business users. At the same time, one or more Dvn 112 developers are responsible for maintaining, configuring, and designing operations. for A1-N108 business users and for B1-N 110 business users. In one example, A1-N108 business users and B1-N 110 business users may be part of the same business company or may be associated Referring now to Figure 1B, metamodel 118 is constructed to communicate with an information technology (IT) model 120 on the one hand and with an activation model 122 and a simulation model 124 on the other. . For example, the IT 120 model provides one or more IT1 implementations such as network services, directory services, event processing, or the like. Authorization template 122 includes job management implementations, software tool configurations, or co-disappearance. Simulation model 124 (to be further described below) includes implementations "as is" and "as it will be". By using a set of vocabularies 126 defined within metamodel 118, embodiments of the invention facilitate communications between the IT 120 model, the authoring model 122, and the simulation model 124, and other models, modules, or components. software to enhance user business objective representation in business process design.

For example, using vocabulary 126, IT developers designing the IT 120 model can define functions or operations for other models using the same concept. At the same time, these IT developers can discover and use existing functions or operations (for example, in the authoring model or the simulation model) that are defined using the same vocabulary set 126. Similarly, the model 122 and simulation model 124, and the other service model 128, can communicate seamlessly with other software models, modules, or components to fully represent the user's business purpose.

It is to be understood that although only six vocabulary terms are defined within the metamodel 118 as shown in Figure 1B and further illustrated below, other terms or constructs may be defined in order to capture concepts commonly used in process processes. business without departing from the scope of the invention.

Figures 2A and 2B are block diagrams illustrating the representation of a business process with associated metadata using vocabulary or operative expressions defined in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. In Figure 2A, a block diagram illustrates a business user design or intent of the business process project. For example, the user (for example, user 108 in Figure 1) intends to design a set of business processes with step A 302, followed by step B 304to step C 306.

Figure 2B illustrates an early stage of task definition in a business process (eg, purchase order). At 302, step A defines a task that has already been linked to an existing implementation resulting in the lack of any visual cues of inconsistency. For example, a user_A-i can be assigned to perform a task of receiving all purchase orders. However, in 304, step B defines a task that was not linked to existing operations for its implementation as well. As such, a warning signal 308 indicates such a problem. For example, an order approval task is assigned to a user_Ai supervisor, but there is no such function yet to perform this task. At 306, step C represents a composite task. When the user clicks the '+' sign, the visual representation of the task will expand to display the contained processes. For example, in the task of approving an order, the individual approving the order is required to check inventory or other tasks. The warning signal also indicates that some elements within composite task 306 are also not linked to an implementation.

Referring now to Figures 3A and 3C, three block diagrams illustrate different user perspectives of a business process according to one embodiment of the invention. Figure 3Show a user perspective of a user 202 (for example, business user A 108). In this example, user 202 is an individual who is interested in activities and their sequences. In other words, user 202 may be interested only in tasks and sequences of events relating to the business process, such as handling a purchase order, such as purchase order 123, in 204. In this illustration, what user 202 would see or access is what is provided for user 202 in view 206: a task list and sequence of events that would have happened to purchase order 123. For example, view 206 describes that at 208 purchase order 123 was sent by a customer, such as ABC Corp. At 210, purchase order 123 is then received by a sales department supervisor. For example, an example of the supervisor might be USER_Ai. At 212, purchase order123 is subsequently approved by a sales department administrator (for example, USER_B1). The next task shown is that at 214 the inventory status is "in stock" and the shipping status for purchase order 123 is "not shipped" at216. Also, view 206 shows at 218 that the invoice for purchase order 123 is "$ 5,000.00".

Figure 3B, on the other hand, illustrates a different view for a user 220, who may be a person who wants to link activities to data sources, data transformation, and data streams. In other words, user 220 wants to link tasks and events to entities. As such, a view 222 of purchase order 123 presented to user 220 would be different from the view 202 presented to user 202 in figure 3A. For example, in this view 222, for the same order sent by the customer (for example, ABC Corp.), at 208, user 220 may have access to a message 224 (for example, voicemail message, voicemail message). e-mail, or the like) that placed the order sent by ABC Corp. For the order to be received by the supervisor (for example, user_A1) at 210, view 222 may show a supervisor contact information 226, such as the person's telephone number, email address, or other contact information. For order approval at 212, user 220 can see administrator contact information 228 (for example, user_B1) in addition to order details 123 at 214. At 216, view 222 can show a snapshot 232 of the sender's data store and the status shown in the sender's data store. At 218, the invoice may have access to a link 234 to an accounting department data store with $ 5,000 being associated with purchase order 123.

Figure 3C depicts a view from a perspective of a user who may be a person who wants to describe the capabilities of an entity term implementation, so the application can be used in the process, such as exposing entities and actions for use. in task sequences. In this example, a view 252 of order 123 may include one or more of the following, as noted below:

For the same step 208 of the order sent by customer ABC Corp., view 252 may show a set of conditions, such as that shown in a box 238. For example, user 236 may already have a set of conditions to implement this. step208, such as:

For all ABC Corp. orders

{if quantity> 500 units

V.P. from Sales Department to handle;

if no

any user can handle;}

In other words, when user 236 accesses the same purchase order 123 instead of what is described in figure 3A or 3B, user 236 sees a different perspective, which is more technically oriented.

At 210, the order is received by the supervisor, the developer also sees a box 240 indicating that the supervisor (for example, USER_A1) is or will be on vacation from 2/27 to 3/3. As such, user 236 may implement an auto responder event to be sent to other personnel to handle purchase orders in the absence of the supervisor. At212, for administrator approval of the order (for example, USER_Bi), user236 can have access to a box 242 showing another set of constraints associated with this step:

For all ABC Corp. orders {if quantity> 500 units

need to be approved by the Sales Department's V. P, otherwise

need to be approved by the Sales Department Administrator;}

In one embodiment, user 236 may additionally (not shown) view the actual purchase order detail 123 to determine if purchase order 123 actually has less than 500 units and whether the administrator is handling the order correctly. otherwise, user 236 may issue an alert event indicating that the VP from the Sales Department must have approved purchase order 123.

At 214, user 236 can see boxes 244 and 246 to further identify inventory status. In this example, user 236 might see the following as a case of an exemplary inventory status check implementation:

If orders from ABC Corp. are not approved within 20 hours for a $ 1 penalty for each unit;

Inventory status check: every 10 ms;

Current Status: 50,000 in stock;

Next stock shipment: 22/2;

In this mode, user 236 can not only see the metadata associated with inventory conditions and this particular client, but user 236 sees the current status of the inventory in such a way that user 236 can implement an alert event when inventory is running. or the next shipment date has not been identified.

At 216, user 236 sees a box 248 showing the following condition for dispatch status:

For ABC Corp. orders {if invoiced> $ 10,000 use night mail;

if no

use ground shipping;}

At 218, view 252 may expose a box 250 for the developer to also show an example of another condition for user invoice 236:

For ABC Corp. orders {if invoiced> $ 500

send invoice within 5 days from business;

if no

send invoice within 30 days;}

It is to be understood that the steps or conditions / restrictions described in Figures 3A to 3C are for illustration purposes only and thus do not limit the scope of the invention. Other properties, sequences, descriptions, parameters, conditions, or the like that may be associated with a business process may be incorporated without departing from the scope of the invention.

As such, depending on the perspectives of a user (for example, user202, user 220, or user 236), embodiments of the invention consistently represent a business process metamodel while adapting to the needs of the user. for different users. In addition, user 202, user 220, or user 236 may be used interchangeably in each view or perspective so that each may access the different views or perspectives as long as the user has the right / permission. to access or modify metadata associated with the business process.

By achieving such ubiquitous representation of the business process, such as placing a purchase order, embodiments of the invention define a common vocabulary114 or set of operative expressions by which business-oriented people and IT-oriented individuals can complete and express business processes. business on a modoconsistent. In addition, through common vocabulary or operative expressions, business people and IT individuals can preserve, expose, and annotate information intended for the other group or perspective.

Existing business process-oriented workflow or software applications are often used to manage how different entities along with organizational functions (eg, people or individuals) interact with various tasks such as workflow processes. For example, a typical series of purchase order fulfillment workflows can happen:

1. An order fulfillment assistant may be responsible for receiving the order from a customer;

2. A customer region administrator may be in charge of approving the order;

3. An inventory manager may have the job of identifying the availability of the ordered product; and

4. A shipping department administrator processes the shipping of or-dens.

In many cases, any individual in the same role, such as an administrator, can perform the task. However, business workflow software applications need to address situations where a specific individual of a particular role must perform a particular task. For example, an expression such as "this.region.region.administrator" requires an identification of the individual who is entitled to produce the function for a particular workflow case.

Unlike existing practice or existing business process applications, embodiments of the invention, instead of translating between different levels of abstraction of a business process model, design a collaborative interface with business process metamodel between business users and IT developers by introducing vocabulary or common operative expressions. This is a collaborative interface because it enables users from many perspectives to express business processes with a consistent yet flexible interface, so that users can fully express a desired operation without losing detail of the technical implementations. Thus, aspects of the invention describe a production environment or an interface in which business people can create and change process models in order to try things without the constant supervision or assistance of IT developers to implement changes to process applications.

Embodiments of the invention define common vocabulary or operative expressions including the following:

1. Event: A significant change of state in any process or service to which the business may respond, where events carry a "payload" to express the state and / or change in terms of entities. For example, an event could be an inbound purchase order request, an alert exception, or the like.

2. Entity: A class of information for a business purpose; an entity has a reference, which is a unique way to refer to an example of an entity by means of an ID or some attribute values. For example, an entity might be a customer ID, which includes a reference such as a customer name and contact information.

3. Action: Operations to be performed or performed on an entity. For example, operations such as create, read, update, delete (CRUD), or other actions produced by an entity. Other actions take a reference to an entity as an input, but do not cause CRUD effects on the referenced entity.

4. Task: A logical unit of work with well-defined start and end states that can be assigned to people or systems. A task can be designed as an entity. A task has a data context that can contain references to various entities (see Table 1 for more detail). For example, a task may be to approve a purchase order.

5. Rule: A declarative expression of a business decision that is evaluated by reference to the state of one or more entities within the scope of the business logic or process in question. Rules can be applied to multiple process artifacts such as events, actions, functions, and tasks.

6. Function: An individual who can perform any tasks or perform any actions. For example, role definitions include references to information such as relationships between personnel and business entities, and entities in the workflow system itself. The example "this task must be approved by the administrator of the region in which this client is situated", which can be expressed as "this.customer.region.administrator", illustrates that role resolution requires both knowledge of workflow entities (that is, "this client") as the relationships that are known only to the personnel and business systems (that is, which region this clientereside, and who is the region administrator) .As another example , Table 1 further describes some of the defined operative vocabularies or expressions and their exemplary operations:

<table> table see original document page 11 </column> </row> <table> <table> table see original document page 12 </column> </row> <table>

Table 1: Vocabulary or defined operative expressions and interaction within the metadata interface; * Activity being associated with business activity monitoring.

Alternatively, embodiments of the invention disclose existing operations that are already available to users. For example, in order to obtain customer status from a given customer, processor 104 can easily determine within operation library 116 whether an action such as 'obtain customer status' is available at a 'customer' entity within from the operations library 116.

Also in another embodiment, where no existing operation can be identified as meeting the needs of a user, the user, who may be a business user without any technical knowledge, will be guided by the embodiments of the invention through vocabulary or common operative expressions to provide Structured requirements for the IT developer to design the requested operation meeting the requirements of the business process. Even if the requested operation in question has not been provided either, the business user can continue and complete the business-level project.

In the event that the developer has difficulty meeting the requested operation requirements without impacting any other interfaces, the developer may signal the impact of his changes on other project components to the business user in representing the process in progress. your level of abstraction.

Also in another alternative embodiment, the business user can modify or extend the business process design by only using existing operations. As such, the business process can be executable without requiring additional IT implementation efforts. For example, processor 104 may receive user input (for example, the Piegocic ^ A1 user in Fig. 1) to perform an operation that is already stored in operation library 116.

It is also to be understood that various programming languages, routines, codes, or application components may be implemented to construct the business process metamodel without departing from the scope of the invention. For example, when implementing the vocabulary or operative expression "Entity", a person might use an application component written in C # language to handle all execution processing processes, such as a user account, task, or the like. However, embodiments of the invention provide metadata associated with the user account or task, as well as the data or operations associated with it, to the user in such a way that users with different perspectives can interact consistently with the given entities. Also in an alternative embodiment, the operative vocabulary or expression may be extended to add new behavior or new expressions based on the client's organizational methodology requirements. For example, new constructs may be added to the metamodel which agrees with the metamodel schemes as described by the embodiments of the invention. Also, existing metadata may be discovered once they are in accordance with the metamodel scheme dictated or described by the embodiments of the invention.

Figure 3D is a block diagram illustrating three different views of the business process, as shown in Figure 2A. In particular, the 3D figure shows a runtime image of the business process, which includes the three steps: steps A, B, and C. In this embodiment, the collected metadata is correlated with the plurality of sequences of activities included in the business process.

For example, a view 310, which is an aggregate view, shows the current status of the business process. For example, of the collected metadata, there are 13 examples of activities or entities in step A while there are 4 examples of step B. A separate view 312 (for example, a drillthrough view triggered by input from a user, such as double-click) shows a list of these four execution examples as represented in the "List of Examples in Step B". In such a view, the user can interact with the metadata displayed by selecting one of the examples to observe additional details. In a 314 view, the user gets the "Example View" from a buy order # 324. This view 314 visually highlights information about this particular case, such as the current task that this example is performing (here: "Step Β"), the start time of any previous, current, and any subsequent tasks (for example). example, step C which is shown in dashed lines as well as not being completed), or the like.

As such, embodiments of the invention correlate metadata with sequence activities as process examples progress through various milestones (indicated as "M1", "M2", or "M3" in the 3D figure). Correlated metadata includes the date label (for example, 8:07 am in M1, duration (for example, 4 hours and 1 minute), or the like).

In an alternative embodiment, a report may be generated showing the state of the business process. In another embodiment, processor 104 can simulate a business process progress given a set of collected metadata. For example, the simulated process would confirm that the actual business process would provide the expected result given the collected metadata. For example, simulations can be implemented through "as is" processes as well as "as is" processes. Simulation of the "As is" process results in an understanding of where data is flowing, what actions happen in the data, and what is the end result of the process. This is usually done to verify that the process is doing what it was expected to do (meet metaSLA, KPI, etc.). Simulating "as is" processes involves changing process steps or process steps to check for a different end result.

Figure 4 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary method for representing a business process according to one embodiment of the invention. In one example, one or more computer readable media, such as computer readable media 502 in Figure 5, includes computer executable components for implementing the method illustrated in Figure 4.

For example, a vocabulary component 504 may define operative expressions to identify the business process in 402. The business process includes a plurality of business sequences. At 404, a data component 506 collects metadata associated with the defined operative expressions. In one embodiment, the collected metadata is formatted according to a schema (not shown) at 406. In one example, the schema includes Extensible Markup Language (XML) format metadata describing the overall business process including entities, entity views, stock information, etc. In such an example, the operative expression "action" may be described using the XML schema as follows:

1. ActionName (Type = "Get", EntityReference)

2. ActionName (Type = "Put", EntityReference, PutParameters)

3. ActionName (Type = "Act", EntityReference, ActParameters)

Figure 7 also depicts a diagram illustrating an exemplary implementation of an entity-action model based on a scheme 700 of the metamodel according to one embodiment of the invention.

At 408, an interface component 508 provides the collected metadata for a user. In another embodiment, the vocabulary component 504 describes the business process so that the interface component 508 can provide the collected metadata to the user (for example, business user A 108 or business user B 110), such that The user can manage, operate or access the metadata associated with the business process. In one embodiment, a reporting component 510 relates business process analysis described to the user. For example, reporting component 510 may report the progress of the business process.

In an alternative embodiment, a logical component 512 evaluates a set of rules associated with the collected metadata in such a way that the user can interact with the business process. Also in another embodiment, a simulation component 514 simulates progress of the plurality of activity sequences based on operative expressions in response to input received by the interface component. In an additional embodiment, a discovery component 516 discovers one or more existing configurations or operations associated with the business process.

Figure 6 shows an example of a general purpose computing device in the form of a computer 130. In one embodiment of the invention, a computer such as computer 130 is suitable for use in the other figures illustrated and described herein. Computer 130 has one or more processors or processing units132 and a system memory 134. In the illustrated embodiment, a system bus 136 couples various system components including system memory 134 to processors 132. Bus 136 represents one or more more than any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA bus (EISA), Electronic Video Standards Association local bus ( VESA), and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus also known as the Mezzanine bus.

Computer 130 typically has at least some form of computer readable media. Computer readable media, which includes both non-volatile and non-volatile volatile media, removable and non-removable media, may be any available computer-accessible media 130, By way of example and not limitation, computer readable media comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media includes volatile, nonvolatile, removable, and non-removable media implemented in any technology method for storing information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data. For example, computer storage media include RAM, ROM, EEPROM, fast memory, or other memory technology, CD-ROMs, digital versatile discs (DVDs), or other optical disc storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, storage magnetic disks or other magnetic storage devices, or any other media that may be used to store the desired information that can be accessed by the computer130. Communication media typically incorporate computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data into a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and include any information delivery media. Those skilled in the art are familiar with the modulated data signal, which has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a way as to encode information in the signal. Wired media, such as a wired network or direct wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustics, RF, infrared, and other wireless media, are examples of communication media. Combinations of any of the foregoing are also included within the scope of computer readable media.

System memory 134 includes computer storage media in the form of removable and / or non-removable, volatile and / or nonvolatile memory. In the illustrated embodiment, system memory 134 includes read-only memory (ROM) 138 and random access memory (RAM) 140. A basic input / output system 142 (BIOS), containing the following Basic routines that help transfer information between elements within computer 130, such as during startup, are typically stored in ROM 138. RAM140 typically contains data and / or program modules that are immediately accessible to processing unit 132 and / or currently being operated by it. By way of example, and not limitation, Figure 6 illustrates operating system 144, application programs 146, other program modules 148, and program data 150.

The computer 130 may also include other removable / non-removable, volatile / non-volatile computer storage media. For example, Figure 6 illustrates a hard disk drive 154 that reads nonvolatile non-removable magnetic media or gravanels. Figure 6 also shows a magnetic disk drive 156 that reads or writes to a removable non-volatile magnetic disk 158, and an optical disk drive 160 that reads or writes to a removable non-volatile optical disk 162, such as a CD-ROM or another optical average. Other removable / non-removable, volatile / non-volatile computer storage media that may be used in the exemplary operating environment include, but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, fast memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and more. Hard disk drive 154, magnetic disk drive 156, and disk drive 160 are typically connected to system bus 136 by a nonvolatile memory interface, such as interface 166.

The units or other mass storage devices and their associated computer storage media, discussed earlier and illustrated in Figure 6, provide storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, and other data to computer 130. In Figure 6 for example, hard disk drive 154 is illustrated as storage operating system 170, application programs 172, other program modules 174, and program data 176. It should be noted that these components may be the same or different from each other. operating system 144, application programs 146, other program modules 148 and program data 150. to operating system 170, application programs 172, other program modules 174 and program data 176 is given different numbers here to illustrate that at a minimum they are different copies.

A user may enter commands and information on computer 130 by means of input devices or user interface selection devices such as a keyboard 180 and a pointing device 182 (for example, a mouse, stationary mouse, pen, or touch surface). ). Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, game controller, manual game control, satellite dish, digitizer, or the like. These and other input devices are connected to the processing unit 132 via a user input interface 184 that is coupled to the system bus 136, but can be connected via another interface and other bus structures such as a parallel port, game port, or Universal Serial Bus (USB). A monitor 188 or other display device is also connected to system bus 136 via an interface, such as a video interface 190. In addition to monitor 188, computers often include other peripheral output devices (not shown) such as a printer and speakers, which can be connected via a peripheral output interface (not shown).

Computer 130 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 194. Remote computer 194 may be a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above with respect to computer 130. The logical connections represented in Figure 6 include a local area network (LAN) 196 and a wide area network (WAN) 198. , but may also include other networks. LAN 136 and / or WAN 138 may be a wired network, a wireless network, a combination thereof, and so on. Such inter-network communication environments are common in offices, extended enterprise computer networks, intranets, and global computer networks (for example, the Internet).

When used in a local area network environment, computer 130 is connected to LAN 196 via a network interface or adapter 186. When used in a wide area network environment, computer 130 typically includes a modem 178. or another device for establishing communications over WAN 198, such as the Internet. Modem 178, which may be internal or external, is connected to system bus 136 via user input interface 184, or by another appropriate mechanism. In a network environment, program modules represented with respect to computer 130, or portions thereof, may be stored on a remote memory storage device (not shown). By way of example, and not limitation, Figure 6 illustrates remote application programs 192 as residing in the memory device. The network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between computers can be used.

Generally, computer data processors 130 are programmed by instructions stored at different times on the computer's various computer readable storage media. Operating programs and systems are typically distributed, for example, on floppy disks or CD-ROMs. Hence, they are installed or loaded in the secondary memory of a computer. In execution, they are loaded at least partially into the computer's primary electronic memory. Aspects of the invention described herein include these and other various types of computer readable storage media when such media contain instructions or programs for implementing the following steps in conjunction with a microprocessor or other data processor. Additionally, aspects of the invention include the computer itself when programmed according to the methods and techniques described herein.

For purposes of illustration, programs and other executable program components, such as the operating system, are illustrated herein as distinct blocks. It is recognized, however, that such programs and components reside at various times in different computer storage components, and are executed by the computer data processor (s).

Although described in connection with an exemplary computing system environment, including computer 130, embodiments of the invention are operative with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computing system environments or configurations. The computing system environment is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of any aspect of the invention. In addition, the computing system environment should not be construed as having any dependency or requirement relating to any or all of the illustrated components in the exemplary operating environment. Examples of well known computing systems, environments and / or configurations that may be suitable for use with aspects of the invention include, but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers, handheld or portable computers, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, signal converters, programmable consumer electronics, mobile phones, network PCs, minicomputers, large computers, distributed computing environments that include any of the above-mentioned systems or devices, and more.

Embodiments of the invention may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, executed by one or more computers or other devices. In general, program modules include, but are not limited to, routines, programs, objects, components, and data structures that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Aspects of the invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are connected through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules can be located on both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.

An interface in the context of a software architecture includes a module, component, piece of software code, or other sequence of instructions executable by computer. The interface includes, for example, a first module accessing a second module to perform computation tasks on behalf of the first module. The first and second modules include, in one example, application programming interfaces (APIs) as provided by operating systems, component object model (COM) interfaces (for example, for non-hierarchical application communication), and application interfaces. extensible markup language (XMI) metadata exchange format (for example, for communication between network services).

The interface can be a tightly coupled synchronous implementation, such as Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE), COM, or Distributed COM (DCOM) examples. Alternatively or in addition, the interface can be a freely copied asynchronous implementation as on a network service (for example, using the simple object access protocol). In general, the interface includes any combination of the following features: tightly coupled, loosely coupled, synchronous, and asynchronous. In addition, the interface may conform to a standard protocol, a proprietary protocol, or any combination of standard and proprietary protocols.

The interfaces described in this document may all be part of a single interface or may be implemented as separate interfaces or any combination thereof. Interfaces can run locally or remotely to provide functionality. Additionally, the interfaces may include more or less functionality than illustrated or described herein.

In operation, computer 130 executes computer-executable instructions such as those illustrated in the figures (e.g., figure 4) to implement aspects of the invention.

The order of execution or performance of operations in the embodiments of the invention illustrated and described herein is not essential unless otherwise specified. That is, the operations may be performed in any order, unless otherwise specified, and embodiments of the invention may include more or less operations than those disclosed herein. For example, it is considered that performing or performing a particular operation prior to, contemporaneously with, or after another operation is within the scope of aspects of the invention.

Embodiments of the invention may be implemented with computer executable instructions. Computer executable instructions can be organized into one or more computer executable components or modules. Aspects of the invention may be implemented with any number and arrangement of such components or modules. For example, aspects of the invention are not limited to the specific computer executable instructions or specific components or modules illustrated in the figures and described herein. Other embodiments of the invention may include different computer executable instructions or components having more or less functionality than illustrated and described herein.

During the introduction of elements of aspects of the invention or embodiments thereof, the articles "one", "one", "o", "a" and "said" are intended to mean that there is one or more of the elements. The terms "comprising", "including", and "having" are considered to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than those listed.

Since various changes can be made to the constructs, products, and methods previously indicated without departing from the scope of aspects of the invention, it is considered that all of the subject matter in the foregoing description and shown in the accompanying drawings will be construed as illustrative and not of a meaning. delimitation.

Claims (20)

1. Method for representing a business process, said method being characterized by the fact that it comprises: defining operative expressions to identify the business process, said business process including a plurality of sequences of activities, collecting metadata associated with the defined operative expressions, format the collected metadata according to a schema; provide a metamodel representing the business process for a user as a function of formatted metadata and defined operative expressions so that the user can interact with the business process using defined operative expressions. Method according to claim 1, characterized in that defining operative expressions comprises defining a collection of operations (116) to expose the business process and the plurality of sequences of activities included for user manipulation ( 108). Method according to claim 1, characterized by the fact that defining operative expressions comprises defining a collection of vocabularies (114), the vocabulary dictation describing the business process for the user (108) and for a developer (236). A method according to claim 1, characterized in that it further comprises generating a report (312) describing a state of the business process, said state defining progress of the plurality of activity sequences as a function of operative expressions and collected metadata. . A method according to claim 4, characterized in that it further comprises, in response to input from the user (108), simulating the progress of the plurality of activity sequences based on operative expressions. Method according to claim 1, characterized in that it further comprises correlating the collected metadata with the plurality of activities included in the business process. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises discovering one or more existing configurations associated with the business process, said existing configurations defining existing operations to interact with the business process. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that one or more computer readable media has computer executable instructions for performing the method according to claim 1. A system (100) for describing a business process, said system being characterized by the fact that it comprises: an interface for collecting metadata, a memory area (106) for storing the collected metadata, a processor (104) configured to execute computer executable instructions for: defining operative expressions to identify the business process, said business process including a plurality of sequences of activities, associating the collected metadata with the identified business process as a function of the defined operative expressions; format the collected metadata according to a schema (700); provide a metamodel (118) representing the business process by interfacing to a user (108) as a function of formatted metadata and operative expressions defined such that user (108) can interact with the business process using defined operative expressions. System according to claim 9, characterized in that the processor (104) is configured to define a collection of operations (116) to expose the business process and the plurality of activity sequences included for user manipulation. (108), and wherein the memory area (106) stores information relating to the collection of operations (116). System according to claim 9, characterized in that the processor (104) is further configured to generate a report (312) describing a state of the business process, said state defining progress of the plurality of activities. as a function of operative expressions and collected metadata. A system according to claim 11, characterized in that the processor (104) is further configured in response to input from the user (108) to simulate progress of the plurality of activity sequences based on operative expressions. System according to claim 9, characterized in that the processor (104) is further configured to correlate the collected metadata with the plurality of activity sequences included in the business process. A system according to claim 9, characterized in that the processor (104) is further configured to discover one or more existing configurations associated with the business process, said existing configurations defining existing operations to interact with the process. Business 15. One or more computer readable media (502), characterized in that they have computer executable components to represent the business process, said computer executable components comprising: a vocabulary component (504) to describe the business process; data component (506) for collecting metadata corresponding to the described business process; an interface component (508) for providing the metadata collected for a user (108); a reporting component (510) for reporting business process analysis described; It is a logical component (512) for evaluating rules associated with the collected metadata in such a way that user (108) can interact with the business process. Computer readable media according to claim 15, characterized in that the vocabulary component (504) comprises defining a collection of operations (116) to expose the business process and the plurality of included activities for user manipulation (108). Computer readable media according to claim 15, characterized in that the vocabulary component (504) comprises defining a vocabulary collection (114), said vocabulary collection (114) describing the business process. for the user (108) and for a developer (236). Computer readable media according to claim 15, characterized in that the report component (510) generates an analysis report (312) describing a state of the business process, said state defining plurality progression. activity sequences as a function of operative expressions and collected metadata. Computer readable media according to claim 18, characterized in that the interface component (508) receives input from the user (108), and further comprises a simulation component (514) for simulating the progress of the plurality of activity sequences based on operative expressions in response to input received by the interface component (508). Computer readable media according to claim 15, characterized in that they additionally comprise a discovery component (516) for discovering one or more existing configurations associated with business process, said existing configurations defining existing operations to interact with. business process.